The First Starspot Spectrum Revealed by JWST
Stars have spots that can mess with our planetary atmosphere observations. Using JWST, today’s authors take advantage of the unique TOI-3884 system to directly probe one of these regions.
Guest: If you give a galaxy a starburst, it’ll probably quench the gas away
The distribution of post-starburst regions within galaxies is linked to diverse quenching pathways that are likely driven by mergers. Guest author, Emmy Wisz, explains how different star formation histories could be the key to understanding quenching mechanisms.
A Clash of Two Titans: Why GW231123 pushes the limits of scientists’ models
Another day, another interesting LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detection! Find out why the extreme parameters of GW231123 create problems for gravitational wave modelers and may have some new information about black hole formation!
Flashy and Fashionably Late: the Fascinating Time Lag in Blazar Flares
The authors of today’s featured paper investigated how a decades-long stakeout of a sample of blazars uncovered new insights into a serious case of cosmic “jet-lag”.
Detecting cold gas in a hot supercluster
The Shapley Supercluster is widely recognised as the most massive gravitationally bound structure in the local universe.The supercluster is made up of 11 galaxy clusters and groups and extends across ~ 260 megaparsecs. At its core, which this paper focuses on, are five clusters. This core hosts several radio haloes,which are caused by shock-heated gas from the Intracluster medium (ICM) and is evidence of ongoing cluster merger activity. This supercluster core is highly dynamically active (full of cluster-cluster mergers), which could influence the evolution of galaxies within the core. This paper examines the evolution of galaxies by observing the cold gas within galaxies (i.e. the neutral hydrogen) and compares several galaxy properties to do so (see also: this previous Astrobite featuring ram-pressure stripped galaxies in the Shapley Supercluster).
Dawn of the Red Monsters
Today’s bite reports the discovery of the most distant red galaxy ever confirmed!